Unbelief

I watched a Sid Roth It's Supernatural program featuring Julie Meyer and she described something that has become her practice. She takes one or two verses of Scripture and sings them as they are written, then she sings them as a prayer, and finally she sings them as a prophecy, as if God were singing those verses over her.

I decided I would do that, too, and eagerly opened my Bible at random. So what did I get? Proverbs 30:2 that says, "Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man."

I laughed at this. Not just a brief laugh, but probably for a full minute. How ironic; surely God was joking with me. He does do that sometimes. I wanted a lovely verse that would bless my heart as I sang it back to myself as a prophecy, and I got one that said I was a brute.

But the man who wrote that verse, Agur the son of Jakeh, was a godly man. How could he say that he had the understanding of a brute? I supposed he did so in the sense that there is so much to know about God, that even Bible scholars who know Greek and Hebrew and have the whole Bible memorized, are still brutish thinkers in comparison to the perfect mind of God.

The statement about not having the understanding of a man, though, caught my attention. There are plenty of men and women who do not have a good understanding of God. How could Agur consider himself being of less understanding than other men, especially those who behave like brutes?

I read the following verses to put Agur’s statement into context:

Surely I am more like an animal than any man, and do not have the understanding of a man. I have not learned wisdom, nor the knowledge of the holy. Who has gone up to Heaven and has come down? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has bound the waters in His garments? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name? Surely you know. Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His Words, lest He reprove you and you be found a liar.

The point of these verses is that it is crazy to not believe the promises of God, for God is all–powerful and cannot lie. It is impossible for God to lie for God is completely good, righteous, and holy. Verse 2 uses the word "brutish" in the old King James version. An animal really would not have any difficulty believing and obeying God, if Yeshua showed up before them and told them that He loved them and for them to follow Him. An animal would instantly recognize its Creator, feel His love, and follow Him gladly. Yeshua would have been thronged with animals all the time, if the Spirit of God had not instructed them to not make a big deal about the Creator walking in their midst.

The reference relates to the normal mentality of an animal, focussed mainly on its own basic needs, not capable of intricate thoughts, but verse 2 also says that the writer did not have the understanding of a man. In other words, a human being, who is completely sane, would also understand that God is all–powerful and His every word is pure, and that God is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. He can deliver those who trust Him from every negative circumstance in life. He can deliver from thirst, starvation, nakedness, sickness, injury, deception, heartache, torture, and death. He can deliver us from pain, if we are tortured, either make it so we feel no pain, or to keep us faithful to Him in spite of pain, so that there is more reward in Heaven for enduring it.

Without demonic interference, a human being would have no problem recognizing that God is infinitely powerful and completely righteous, and they would trust God for His deliverance in the face of every negative circumstance in life. A person who has spirits of doubt and unbelief attached to them, though, either through being raised in an environment that cultivates unbelief, or from their own rebellious decision to reject the righteousness of God, will eventually become completely depraved, if God’s restraining grace is removed and they are allowed to live long enough to sink down to that level.

Some people become brutes because they love evil, but most who are in that condition probably become so due to fear. They are afraid of lacking the essentials of life and think that this is a dog eat dog world where everyone has to look out for No. 1, their own self. When a society becomes depraved under a tyrannical political system that targets ethnic or religious groups for extinction, some of those who are fearful of being caught in the teeth of that machine become part of its brutality.

But everyone is responsible for allowing the demonic to reside in their soul, regardless of how it managed to gain access. Fear and unbelief are evil.

The Bible says in Hebrews 3:12 "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." There are degrees of unbelief and degrees of brutishness. If one is not moving towards God to rid themselves of their unbelief and develop righteous character, but going backwards instead, it is truly frightening to think of what kind of monster we might become.

In Mark 9, the story is recorded of the difficulty Yeshua’s followers had in casting a deaf and dumb spirit out of a boy. Yeshua cast it out and His disciples asked Him later why they could not do it. Yeshua replied in verse 29, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." He was not referring to the deaf and dumb spirit; He was referring to His disciples’ unbelief.

It was the Israelites’ unbelief in God’s ability to give them victory over the giants in the Promised Land that made them fearful to move ahead. Perhaps they reasoned that they might win eventually, but some of them, maybe even many of them, would die in battle and not taste the fruits of victory. They were not willing to die for the sake of their nation having their own territory, if they could not enjoy it, too. But none of them would have died in battle, if they all continued to obey God and trusted that God would preserve all of their warriors.

The evil report that there were giants in the land and it was unlikely that they could overcome them without fatalities infected most of the congregation. Women were not willing to risk losing their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons, though if they had believed God who had already proved Himself faithful by delivering them from the Egyptians, they would not have entertained the idea of any of their warriors falling in battle. So, the Israelites wandered for forty years in the wilderness, instead of going into a land that was preserved from the cataclysms that destroyed Egypt and other nations, a land that God had protected for His people as their inheritance.

Later in their history, the majority of the nation of Israel entered again into the demonic bondage of unbelief, this time hindering them from obtaining God’s precious promises regarding receiving their Messiah. Romans 11 speaks of how the Jews who refused Him were cut off from salvation. Jews who have died in their unbelief did not get to go to Heaven, regardless of their ancestry or religious rituals. But what they refused was offered to the Gentiles. Many heathen since then have turned from their sins and received salvation in accordance with the prophecies that the Messiah would be the Light of the Gentiles.

The Jews put their focus on the Messiah, the Son of David, the conquering King, forgetting how their rabbis used to teach about the Messiah, the Son of Joseph, the suffering Servant of whom Joseph, the son of Jacob, in the Torah was a foreshadowing. He was sold by his brothers to be a slave, and eventually became ruler of Egypt and saved his nation. In parallel, Yeshua was sold out by one of his own disciples for thirty pieces of silver, the price of a slave. Also, His adoptive father was named Joseph, and that Joseph’s father’s name was Jacob. Yeshua fulfilled all the prophecies about the Messiah’s birth, His miracles, and what He would suffer. It is a marvel when a Jew who knows the Scriptures concerning Him still won’t believe, or takes a long time to believe them.

Jesus marvelled many times at His disciples’ unbelief, and He surely marvels at the Jews, that they had so many signs that He was the Messiah they had been waiting for, but they refused to believe because He did not free them from the Romans. Indeed, it seemed that, to Him, the Roman government was a non–issue. This was because He came to set them free from something more important than political disadvantages. He came to set them free from sin. That has to be dealt with first. Sin will send people to Hell. Life is short; afterwards is forever.

Revelation 21:8 says, "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."

That is how serious it is to harbour fear and unbelief in one’s soul. Those who refuse to put their trust in Yeshua as their Messiah, however good–living they might otherwise be, are categorized with people who commit abominations, murder, sex slavery, witchcraft, and tell lies, and even are so brutish in their understanding that they bow down to statues. They may have refused to believe in Him because they did not want to give up their self–will, even if they exercised it to do only relatively minor sins, or they may have believed Him to be the Messiah, but were afraid of family members or friends rejecting them, or losing their job or their place in society, or of greater degrees of persecution.

Unbelief in God’s goodness and power and His love for us are doorways to greater sins. It took me only a short time to realize that it turning to Proverbs 30:2 was no laughing matter. God was putting His finger on my heart. I want to appropriate perfect health, which was provided for all the redeemed of God through what Yeshua suffered, in accordance with the prophecy in Isaiah 53:5, "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

I also want to operate in signs, wonders, and miracles, for there are so many people who are suffering, and I hate what satan is doing to them. To that end, as well as to appropriate my own blessings, I have watched a lot of Sid Roth’s videos and that of other anointed men and women of God who operate on a high level of faith. But here I was, flat on my back with a pulled muscle, having battled infirmity with spiritual weapons, until I finally caved in and went to the hospital for treatment, and was now taking pain medication. Medicine is okay to take while we’re waging war on sickness (Deuteronomy 20:19), but I figured that I should be past that by now, considering how much good teaching I had listened to.

How could I not believe all the promises of God? He who made the Universe is most certainly able to fix anything He has made when it gets damaged. He who gave us His own Son to redeem us from our sins and remove all the curses is certainly willing to heal us. Yeshua came to reveal the Father’s will and He healed ALL who came to Him for healing and deliverance.

So since He is able and willing to heal us, whose fault is it when we know this, but our healing does not immediately manifest? I will speak only for myself. It is MY fault when I don’t instantly manifest my healing that Yeshua paid so dearly for. I deserve to be called brutish and to be said to not have simple understanding.

It is an insult to God to not believe all that He says, and demons like to insult God. They love it when we allow doubt and unbelief to attach itself to us. They love to feed off of our insecurity and inferiority that says we are not good enough to receive all of God’s blessings that He has promised to those who are redeemed.

If we have repented of our sins and received Yeshua as our Saviour, all of our debts have been cancelled. Not only that, but Yeshua’s righteousness has been credited to our account. Prayer, fasting, delving into the Word of God and meditating on it continuously is required when we find that we have difficulty receiving what God has promised in His Word. We can’t afford to be complacent about not believing God for EVERYTHING that He has promised.

"Every word of God is pure; He is a SHIELD to those who put their trust in Him." We don’t know all of what we’re going to have to face in the future, so we better get rid of all unbelief and make it our normal practice to trust God to fulfill all His promises and to appropriate by faith those things that He says we already have. We overcome by the Blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony, and remaining faithful unto death. Believing God and trusting Him is key to remaining faithful until death.

Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
[Psalm 119:11]